717: Left- and Right-wing Nov 24, 2016

The right- and left-wing, on days that aren't Thanksgiving, refer to stances on political and social issues. The terms have been used since 1789 during the French Revolution when different supporters in the National Assembly split themselves up without planning beforehand with revolutionists to the left of the president, and supporters of the kind on the right. This division continued into the seating of the Legislative Assembly, and in the mid 19th century, the ideas of the Democratic Socialists, and the Reactionaries were associated with the seating in the assembly. There was also room for a center-group, the Constitutionals, but most of the time people describe the nuances with center- right or left. These terms came into English in the former half of the 20th century, most commonly concerning the Spanish Civil War.

716: burg, borough, borrow, and bury Nov 23, 2016

It isn’t usually too surprising when words that connote similar ideas, such as 'borough' and 'burgh' turn out to be related. In this case, both of them date back to the Old English 'burg' meaning 'city' especially a walled fortress, but more surprisingly the verb 'borrow', though not 'burrow', is also related. The Old English derivative for that term originally meant 'to preserve' giving us the connection to burgs, but also the verb 'bury'. For more on this, see the post on 'burg'.

715: magpie Nov 22, 2016

Birds are pretty easy to hate, and even if a few individual ones might be tolerable like crows, others like pigeons and apparently magpies are not. The word 'magpie' comes dates all the way back to Latin from a word, 'pica' which is now related to 'picus' which is a green woodpecker. The former tmesis, 'mag', is from Middle English dialect 'maggot the pie' and 'maggoty-pie'. At first you might think that the 'maggot' would be the same as the larva on account of nobody liking either one much, but actually it comes from a nickname for the 'Marguerite'.

714: Dude Nov 21, 2016

This post is modified from an answer I gave to a fan a few days ago asking what 'dude' means. What makes this slightly tricky is that words used in more informal contexts often are not defined well by dictionaries, either because they do not feature as heavily in texts, and or that they are situationally dependent. In the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word is defined as "a fastidiously dressed man" and "city dweller", which is not how most people use the word now. These senses go back to the way it was used in the late 1800's, as around 130 years ago, this was used pejoratively to describe overdressed men. Words have changed as society changes, but often dictionaries aren't edited at the same rate. If you ever have your own questions, please feel free to submit them in a message. 

713: spam Nov 20, 2016

Which came first, the unwanted mail, spam, or the unwanted ham, Spam? Unlike many other words explored on Word Facts, 'spam' does not date back to Latin, Old English, or even Middle English; the earliest 'spam' was in 1937, when the meat-product was first produced. The use of the word as a reference to unwanted mail originated with a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch in which the cast chants 'Spam' so much as to interrupt the other speech. 

712: gentry, gentleman, genteel, and gentile, Nov 19, 2017

A word like the Latin, 'genus' explored more in the link below has given English an array of words relating to the human race and biology, but with so many of these words, it would have been unlikely for some of them not to have divergent meanings. 'Gentry' and 'gentleman' both related to rank, with the former referring to those born into nobility, and the latter denoting a man of good standing but not a nobleman. As time went on, other derivatives had less and less to do with the original meaning of 'genus'. The sense of 'well-born' or 'clan', also seen in 'gentile', later gave rise to the connotation with 'fashionable', and from the French, 'gentil', we got 'genteel' eventually becoming derogatory in the 1800's. For more on this topic click here.

711: index (finger) Nov 18, 2016

The finger next to one's thumb goes by many names, including 'first finger', 'forefinger', 'index finger', and 'pointer finger', which is names than any other digit. The word 'index' comes directly from the Latin for ‘forefinger' derived from the verb, 'dicere' meaning ‘say’ and or 'dicare' meaning ‘make known’, which is also the root for 'indicate'. The sense of the word as a part of a book came much later but what it connotes is true to the sense of the word. Around the same time, the 'pointer' of 'pointer finger' began to be used starting in the early 17th century. 

710: elicit, illicit, and solicit Nov 17, 2016

If you are a reader of Word Facts, you may at this point start to believe that words which sound similar are likely to be related, after all, 21 of all of the past posts contain the phrase "sound similar". Nevertheless, there are some sets of words which are misleading. It would make sense if 'elicit,' 'solicit', and 'illicit' shared a common root, but it is not the case that these words differ only from historical prefixes. While 'elicit' derives from the verb 'lacere' meaning 'attract or charm' (not to be confused with 'lacerare' which gives English, 'lacerate'), 'illicit' is derived from negating 'licere', meaning 'to be permitted'. 'Solicit', unlike the other two, does not come from affixation but instead, compounding, as the first syllable is from 'sollus' which means, 'whole', and the verb for 'to move', 'cicēre', in the sense of 'disturb'.

709: meerkat and mongoose Nov 16, 2016

When speakers of a language don't have a word for something and need one, or have a word but for whatever reason need a better one, the easiest way is to either create a word from existing elements, or to adopt a word from another language, assuming one exists. This happened a great deal when means for travel became simpler and faster some centuries ago, and people began to see objects and events never before witnessed by that group. When the Europeans ventured further and more often into Africa and Asia, they found the mongoose, a word adopted from the Marathi, 'maṅgūs'; we see here an example of word adoption. 'Meerkat', however, a type of mongoose, is derived from a Dutch word meaning, 'sea cat' as meerkats are no mere cats (nor cats at all).

708: fantasy, fancy, and phantom Nov 15, 2016

It might be hard to imagine all of the words that have been created, arguably from people's imaginations, over the years. Quite appropriately, the Greek word for ‘imagination’ has given Modern English a plethora of words. The latinized form of that word, 'phantasia', comes from, ‘phantom,’ and earlier, 'phantazein' meaning ‘make visible’. You could probably guess that we get 'phantom' from this, but also 'fantasy' including all of its derivatives like 'fantastic' and 'fantastical', all originally spelt with a PH. Through a simple contraction of 'fantasy', we got the word 'fancy'.

707: Hindustani Nov 14, 2016

If there is Turkistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan Pakistan, and all of those other place-names ending with the -stan suffix in South Central Asia, should there be a Hindustan for the nearby India?—This is a trick -question, as there already is one: a term used to denote the entire Indian subcontinent, but specifically the northern region thereof. Culturally perhaps, the Middle East and India are quite distinct, but this is less of the case linguistically. Starting with the Mughals who once ruled over parts of India without changing the language too greatly aside from the adoption of a few loan words, a new script was introduced which is still used for Urdu and Persian. Over time, different scholars in this region, which is now Pakistan and India, preferred either the native Devanagari or the Persian script. The Urdu writers chose to include more Arabic and Persian words in their work, rejecting Sanskrit-derived words while Hindi writers would do the opposite, but apart from that, that is the biggest difference between Hindi and Urdu. Conversationally are the same language, even though they are attached to two different cultures.

706: Diglossia Nov 13, 2016

What English-speaker—nonnative or otherwise—wouldn't have cause to complain about it's illogical and inconsistent spelling rules? It's fair to say that the writing system is confusing and has many exceptions for every rule and generalization, but other languages have or have had some writing systems which make far less sense. The East Slavic languages, Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian, are all spoken, and as one would assume, therefore written differently. Nonetheless, at one point, all of the Slavic languages had a common literary-language, Old Church Slavonic, which gave the world the Cyrillic script. As modern Slavic languages diverged from each other, there was a period of time up until the 14th century in which the ancestors of modern day Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians all spoke their own dialects of Old East Slavic, which was a different language than the one used for the writing system. This situation, called "diglossia" meaning 'bilingual' in Greek, happens on occasion when a language changes over time from the standard forms which are still enforced, such as with formal Arabic, based off of the Qur'an, and informal, spoken Arabic.

705: Apostrophe Nov 12, 2016

We didn't always have writing, and even when we did, it wasn't always the same. English only gained the apostrophe which it got from French in the 1500's, and it didn't really catch on for another hundred years. Even then, there was no real consensus on its usage; sometimes it would be used to mark an omitted letter, and sometimes it was used for plural endings, especially for loan-words and words that end with a vowel: "there are 2 apostrophe's". Around 200 years ago was when people began to use it as a genitive marker to show that there was an E removed (see more here). When in the 19th century professionals attempted to standardize these rules, the ways in which apostrophes were being used were so varied and abundant that this became difficult. The rules were also arbitrary, such as having genitive endings for nouns like "boy's" but not pronouns like 'hers', except for "one's". To make this more confusing, British companies omitted the genitive-apostrophe in their names, and this is still the case in the UK on many signs and place-names, according to the Britannica Atlas. There are many causes for disagreements on this subject, such as one's age or country of origin, and so there is no one correct set of rules.

704: arbitrary, arbitrate, and arbiter Nov 11, 2016

There few things as integral to culture as language, and as such, it has the ability to offer great insights into the mindset of a people. An 'arbiter' is someone who settles arguments, or you may go as far as to say, 'arbitrates' fights, and ought to therefore have very good judgement. It may be expected, then that those words come from another meaning ‘judge, supreme ruler’, in Latin. Even in newer words like business jargon which contains the word, 'arbitrage', something that involves a great understanding of different markets in which to sell the same products, comes from this Latin, 'arbitrer'. Consider then that 'arbitrary', also comes from the same Latin word which once had the same connotations as the other, but in late Middle English, the sense changes from its original, 'judgement' to 'dependent on one's will or pleasure' to its modern day meaning of 'random, without reason'. A lack of trusting in the decisions of the governing authority is nothing new. 

703: sodomy and buggery Nov 10, 2016

Those familiar with the Western canon, or otherwise familiar with any one of the three Abrahamic religions would likely be familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. First, from the story in Genesis, the cities were associated with impenitence and sin, but then over time, people began to associate the homosexual tendencies as written in Genesis 19:1-11. Thence, 'sodomy' as we know it today was adopted into English through Latin. This is not the only derogatory term, however, for gay-sex to derive from a place-name. 'Buggery', which people mostly know from the exclamation, 'bugger', has been used as both an insult and in legal contexts in England. This word comes from the Latin, 'Bulgarus' meaning 'Bulgarian', due to association with the Bogomils accused of sodomy.

702: fun, fond, and dupe Nov 9, 2016

In hard times, it is important to try to have fun. Humans—and probably animals too but let's not go there—have a wonderful way of turning stresses into comedy, since otherwise issues would be looming and frightening all of the time. It might not then come as a shock that the root for 'fun', which used to be a verb meaning ‘to cheat or hoax,’ and as a noun, ‘make a fool of’. English also gained the word, 'fond' from this, though both it and 'fun' have changed meanings through the centuries. Closer to the original sense, however, the word, 'dupe' is also related, except here, the word is said to come from the bird, hoopoe, named based off of the sound they make. For more on bird-related terms, click here.

701: vote, devote, and vow Nov 8, 2016

Do you have to be devoted to a candidate to vote for a candidate? Morally no, but I vow to answer as a linguist. 'Vote' comes from the Latin participle, 'vote' meaning 'a vow' or 'a wish', and the verbal form of 'votum', 'vovere' gave English, 'vow'. 'Devote', etymologically speaking, is only a more formal form of the same word. Generally, those words have changed little over time, but still, American politics are based off of Ancient Athens not Rome, supposedly. The Greek for 'vote' is 'psephos' which means 'pebble'. In Ancient Greece, there were a few different ways that votes were cast, including by hand, shouting, or using discs to be more secretive, but early elections were based off of pebbles being used as ballots.

700: Wrong Division Nov 7, 2016

Often on Word Facts words will be tracked over time, but the changes, either from language to language, or within the same one, are not explained. There are a slew of reasons why English takes has so many words that are different from their original Old English, Latin, or whichever language it may be, including accent-differences, and people's unwillingness to speak consistently with the native pronunciation or grammar rules. When words change within a single language, however, it is easier to spot why. "Wrong division" is a term applied to words which have sounds split, most commonly from the indefinite article 'a'. The snake, 'adder', and the drill, 'auger' are both of Germanic origins and both used to have an initial N; in fact 'nave' and 'auger' come from the same word even though they sound nothing alike. This is true also of adopted words, such as 'umpire' which comes from the French, 'nonper' meaning, 'not equal' and for a period in Middle English was, 'noumpere'.
For more on this, see Napkin and Apron and also Nicknames

699: college and ligament Nov 6, 2016

What does higher education have to do with anatomy? It's an odd question but answerable nonetheless, and even without saying "medical school". While college in the United States can refer to any undergraduate program, elsewhere it refers to schools for specific subject training associated with other colleges in a system. The non-American sense is the same as the original Latin, 'collegium' meaning ‘partnership, association,’ ultimately from 'legare' meaning ‘to depute’. This word also gave English 'collegiate', and 'colleague'. This shouldn't be too alarming since the words sound similar and have similar meanings, but 'legare' also gave us 'legate'. 'Legare' is also related to the Latin 'ligare' meaning 'to bind', and gave English 'ligature' and 'ligament'.

698: buck-naked Nov 5, 2016

When one is buck-naked, it is not to say exactly that he is naked as a deer or a dollar bill. 'Buck' started in Old English as 'buc' to mean 'male deer' and over time, this applied to certain other male animals, first from association from other words like 'bucca' for a male goat, and then later on just from convention, as was the case for kangaroos, which has no Old English equivalent. In the last few centuries, the word took on some racist tones with the term being applied to Native Americans and those of African descent in the U.S. No one is entirely sure why people say, 'buck-naked' but while the word has been in use for just a little over a hundred years, 'butt-naked' is even younger, and tends to be preferred.